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Web Program With Phone Counseling Helps More Smokers Quit, Study Says

by Caleb Johnson on January 12, 2011 at 03:05 PM

cigarette buttA recent study claims that smokers who received personal phone calls from counselors for 18 months and participated in QuitNet.com, an online smoking cessation program, had double the quit rates of smokers who only used the online program. According to a Reuters report, about 2,000 smokers participated in the large-scale study, which was conducted at the American Legacy Foundation's Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies. Researchers split the smokers into three groups: ones who received a QuitNet premium membership and weekly phone calls; ones who just received the QuitNet membership; and ones who used another website with general advice on quitting smoking. After the study ended, 15-percent of the smokers who had used phone counseling and QuitNet reported that they had stopped smoking, while eight-percent of those who had only used QuitNet had stopped. Those results might seem paltry, but, according to the National Cancer Institute, fewer than five-percent of smokers quit without any counseling or medication.

QuitNet, which has about 60,000 monthly users, provides a community and other resources to help smokers kick their habit by a certain date (A premium membership costs $99.95 for a year). While an online community for smokers who want to quit couldn't hurt anybody, it's also important to note that one of this study's authors used to counsel QuitNet's owner. And everybody knows how murky the truth gets when it comes to the tobacco industry. We aren't saying this study's quit rates are false, or even fudged; there are just other ways for people to stop smoking, too. In the end, you just have to figure out which route works best for you.

Tags: cigarettes, counseling, health, phone, smoking, SocialNetworking, study, tobacco, top, Web

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